Zoning change plan on Broadway has Raynham residents concerned

Friday

May 3, 2013 at 12:01 AMMay 3, 2013 at 3:03 AM

As a group of neighborhood residents in Raynham speak out against a proposed residential-to-business zoning reclassification of a parcel on Broadway, the company behind plans for the property are now talking about their intentions.

Marc Larocque

As a group of neighborhood residents in Raynham speak out against a proposed residential-to-business zoning reclassification of a parcel on Broadway, the company behind plans for the property are now talking about their intentions.

The Bellingham Land Company said its plans are for a so-called “neighborhood center,” which would consist of a 20,000- to 25,000-square-foot building, that may house a medical office, a salon or a cellphone store, among other businesses that could draw customers from the local area. The zoning proposal — calling for 20,000 square feet at a 219 Broadway on Route 138 across from Market Basket to be changed to business — is subject to a vote by residents as Article 28 on the warrant for Town Meeting on May 20.

“We understand people in the neighborhood have questions,” said Greg O’Brien, a spokesman for the Providence-based Bellingham Land Company. “We believe in being a good neighbor. … There are a lot of developers who just would propose something and wouldn’t engage neighbors in discussion and tell them about the plan.”

During recent Board of Selectmen and Planning Board meetings, a group of residents from nearby First Street expressed their concern over the project and over a lack of information about it, especially after a controversial last-second residential-to-business zoning proposal was added to a Town Meeting warrant in 2011, before ultimately failing.

The residents against the zoning proposal have also put up some signs around town against Article 28, expressing concerns about traffic, property values and additional development.

“I think if they get to re-zone this tiny parcel at the meeting, they’ll be asking for more business there, and we will be losing our leverage, because they’ll say they already have something there,” said Laraine Nickerson, who lives on First Street and has been the point person between the town and a group of neighbors against the proposal. “Route 138 is different from Route 44, which has a river all on one side. We have cross streets on each side, and lots of residents living on them. It’s definitely a different atmosphere.”

Bellingham Land Company is affiliated the East Providence-based Coast Realty, O’Brien said.

The 20,000-square-foot section is part of a much larger piece of land, totaling 5.1 acres, O’Brien said. About 90 percent, or 4.6 acres of the total parcel, is already zoned as a business district, he said.

Opponents of the measure have expressed concern that rezoning the 20,000-square-foot lot could provide access to the business district, leading to much more extensive development — a notion that O’Brien shot down.

“If someone says this is the way that people could go back on other land and other places back there, they can already do that if they wanted to,” O’Brien said. “We are not providing access to anything other than a neighborhood center. That’s as big as we can build.”

O’Brien said that the neighborhood center would not generate any more vehicle traffic in the area, because it will provide services to residents of the immediate area who are already on the roads there. O’Brien also said the center would fit in with the aesthetics of the community.

“We would design an attractive center in keeping with neighborhood centers throughout New England,” he said. “The neighborhood center will create jobs and generate tax revenues for the town. …We are hopeful of approval. We believe our request makes for good common sense and appropriate zoning, considering that 90 percent of the property is zoned for these purposes.”

The 20,000-square-foot section of the property, with a small vacant house in the front, is currently zoned Residential D, which allows for limited commercial uses under a special permit, O’Brien said. Limited use includes offices for professional, arts studios, gift or antique shops or a bed and breakfast inn.

O’Brien added that all future use of the 20,000 square foot section would require town approval.

Nickerson, part of the group of residents against the zoning proposal, said one of her main problems with approving Article 28 is that the town has not yet finished developing zoning provisions as a result of the Route 138 Corridor Study that was financed by a $25,000 grant given to Raynham last year.

Nickerson said that the recommendations of the study for zoning regulations have not yet been formulated, as Raynham is in the midst of a transition at the Town Planner position.

“It’s not that I’m against business,” Nickerson said. “I know I live in a hot real estate area for business. But the town did a $25,000 study and we should get a chance to put the provisions in place as a part of that before you do more spot rezoning.”

O’Brien said that the Bellingham Land Company desires to utilize the property in accordance with the objectives of the Route 138 study, which he said puts the subject property into a “medium intensity retail working district” that is “transitioning to a higher intensity retail district.”

The Town Meeting will be held Monday, May 20, at 7 p.m. at Raynham Middle School. The zoning article will require a 2/3 majority vote to pass.

The zoning proposal will be discussed at the Raynham Planning Board meeting on Monday, May 16, at 6:30 p.m. at Raynham Town Hall.